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PAID vs. VOLUNTEER: the pressure for numbers

February 25, 2011 By 19 Comments

I worked in paid youth ministry position within the church for 29 years. The last year I’ve been a volunteer youth worker and have absolutely loved it! My volunteer role is to lead a “small group” of 9th grade boys (who meet at my home on Wednesday nights) and I occasionally teach the entire high school ministry when Josh Griffin (the HS pastor needs/wants a break). It’s a really good season of youth ministry for me!

It seems that every time I’m with a veteran youth worker they ask me, “What’s it like on the ‘other’ side? How is it being a volunteer?”

Obviously, there’s pros/cons to every major decision, but I thought I’d occasionally post on the topic of paid vs. volunteer. Here’s one pro to being a volunteer: I don’t feel the pressure for numbers as I did when I was being paid.

My small group of boys has ballooned to 21 guys…so, obviously it’s no longer a small group by term, but it is by definition. My job is to shepherd these guys. I really like the guys in my group! Most of them want to grow. They’re fun, wild, relational, becoming more open and transparent, and as odd as it sounds they seem to be okay with having an old man like me being their small group leader. Saturday night they’re coming over to hang out and watch the pay-per-view UFC fights. That’s it—they’re great and I have quickly grown to love them.

Here’s the context to my recent learning: last week only 9 of the 21 showed up to Bible Study/Small Group and I was thrilled. Seriously, I was so excited that 12 of them were missing (finals’ week, basketball game, whatever…). Then it hit me, when I was a paid youth pastor I would have been totally disappointed if we experienced more than a 50% decline in attendance. Now, as a volunteer, I didn’t care! Not only didn’t I care, I was actually excited. I had never felt that way before… and, honestly, I loved the feeling.

There’s a lot of pressure paid youth workers feel in regards to numbers. We can try to talk it away and dismiss its importance, but it’s VERY REAL. Even when I was successful in not thinking about it, the numbers’ pressure was always looming. I knew that the decision-makers, who would never investigate the health of our youth ministry, were the same ones who judged our ministry by our numbers. That pressure is always looming…conscious or unconscious.

I’m glad I don’t feel it anymore!

Well, this last Wednesday I had 18 of the 21 back in the house and I was glad to see them. But, it was different…I was glad to see them because I was just glad to see them. I wasn’t glad to see them because they represented a number that made me look better.

I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

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  • http://markriddle.net mark riddle

    love this post. this is why shared leadership is so important. not only to help paid staff see the beauty of a smaller number, but to challenge the status quo for the church leadership. I know you aren’t advocating for small groups, but you proposing healthy perspective and expectations.
    good stuff.
    look forward to seeing you next week.

  • http://www.hebrewservant.blogspot.com/ David

    I agree wholeheartedly sometimes we worry too much about numbers…..God said I will build my called out ones!! I sit on finance boards and deacon boards and get frustrated sometimes when all some folks want to know about is if we are growing……Jesus had 12….

  • http://www.studentministry.org Tim Schmoyer

    Dude, I totally know how you feel. As I get ready to move into a volunteer role at a church, the pressure is totally gone. I love it! It’s like I can just focus on ministry without all the other politics and expectations.

  • Michael

    Doug, I’m still on ‘that’ side. I am a paid youth pastor, but only part-time. Which means I really feel the pressure because I constantly have the looming thought, “If only the group grew to twice the size, then maybe the church board would see a huge need to make this a full-time position.” I struggle with it, especially since I’ve been working now for 3 years and haven’t seen any real steady growth in numbers. Thankfully my senior pastor has not pressured me. I’m in seminary as well, so that has taken much of my time and energy too. My Senior Pastor has expressed that if the church cannot support me when I graduate, he knows that I will have to leave in order to seek a full-time job once I’m finished, so I feel him advocating for me. But that pressure is still there because I do not want to leave.

    I think your post is simply expressing the joy of being a volunteer and the excitement it brings now that you no longer have that looming thought. You said something in a book or podcast that has really helped me. You said something to the effect of, “You want to grow your ministry, then take care of your students.” So that’s where I’m at. I’m developing adult and student leaders to help take care of students. And I think that’s where your heart and passion comes from in your own small group. I’d love to read more about this.

    Thanks Doug!

    • doug

      Michael, you’ll have the ability to write a post called “youth ministry during seminary vs. youth ministry without being in seminary”…both were wonderful times for me, but I like the pace and focus a lot better when I was finished with seminary. Wouldn’t trade it for anything, but ministry takes on a different feel when school is behind you.

  • Albert

    Dude, you hit the nail on the head. This is my fourth year as a volunteer youth worker for my church, where previous years I was in charge of the fellowship and worrying about this/that/etc. But this current year so far is getting to be the best because I thought less about numbers and more about ministry. It became more relational and work out of who God made me to be.

    • doug

      Tim & Albert… dude!

  • http://www.buildmyelectricguitar.com Mike T.

    I have never been a paid staff person at a church, so I don’t know the “other side” of things. However I would like to say that I am thrilled that our church, which is relatively new, has absolutely nobody that runs the youth (teens) that is paid. There are however about half a dozen of us who run our youth program, and we love it!

    WE don’t care about numbers, just building quality relationships with our teens, and fostering a walk with our Lord that comes from the depth of their soul, and not so much from head knowledge.

    • doug

      Mike…that’s nice! I often wonder what a church would like like where no one was paid to do ministry and the most important person in the church was Jesus. I’m not suggesting that is what church should look like (no paid positions)…I’d just like to see the infrastructure of how it works.

  • Chris

    Love this post!!! Ministry is a calling not a job. When I am worried about numbers I have stopped working for God and have become an employee of mine and others wants and desires. I left paid ministry after ten years and feel as if I am more productive now more than ever, especially with my most important sheep (my family). I pray for the day when congregations hire ministers to leave the building and live among the lost instead of playing with the saved.

  • desi marie

    I’ve the Director of Youth Discipleship at my church and am still pretty new, started in October. It’s weird because on a weekly basis people are asking me how many did you have and their response seems to make a difference in how I walk away from the conversation. I say that numbers are important for evaluation but dont necessarily mean spiritual growth, which I believe is more important. While in college, I remembered how it was great to just be there and if you messed up or something didn’t go great the blame wasn’t completely on you. :)

  • http://CCyouth.org Jim Perry

    Great post. I am on that side. It is always discouraging when numbers are low. But I continually remind myself to pour my heart and love to those that do show up. Part of me wants that to be the best nights, but I am afraid that is even selfish. I want them to tell others what a great night it was so they want/desire to come. Another problem in my situation we have a pastor who announced his retirement on year ago and May 1 is his last sunday (speak of slow death). So, I church has been losing something (including people) for a long time. Can’t wait to look forward to something. Speaking of looking forward see you next week in Chicago.

    Looking Forward,
    Jim

  • http://joshpezold.com josh pezold

    Loved the post. Just got back from ciy believe tonight and needed to hear it. At the conference one of the first thing youth ministers ask each other is So how many kids you bring? Immediately you feel the pressure to either explain how you didn’t have as many as last year or express how well your doing with the impressive number. The Big timers get their assigned sections and sometimes it can be easy to feel like the little guy.having a reminder that its really not about numbers helps. Thanks

    • doug

      Josh…appreciate your honesty. Might be an interesting discussion with CIY.

  • Brian Seidel

    Numbers is such a tough thing, and one that never goes away no matter what side you are on. Which is why I wrote an entire chapter about it in my book. I am currently in a place in my ministry where our numbers are down, but I feel completely safe in the center of God’s will as we challenge the paradigm and strive for true Biblical health. Yet, as a paid youth worker I always have to fight the temptation to just bring in a ton more hype and attract the numbers back quickly. Thanks for your words Doug to help me fight that temptation.

  • http://www.destination-home.org Neil Young (not the real one)

    i think the “number” conversation only gets out of hand when we place too much or too little focus on it.

    The truth is that in ministry “success” is tough to measure. Its not a shop, factory or wholesalers which have clearly quantitative goals (a fancy word I learnt at school). Numbers within our youth ministries are one of the few quantative goals that we have to measure and they often show us that we are doing at least “something” right or wrong. They also allow us to view how to plan our ministries and analyse what times are best for what activities and for that reason we should never dismiss them too much.

    On the other hand we are often duped into believing they are the only factor by which success in our ministry is judged and this is a step too far. The truth is we could pack our churches with young people – all we need is free pizzas, sumo suits and free money giveaways but it doesn’t necessarily mean our ministries have health .

    I want the people within my youth ministry to grow spiritually, emotionally and numerically and I think ALL are vital to measuring health within the ministry.

    But I could be wrong!!

    Sorry for the extremely long comment but you got me thinking and that is a dangerous thing!

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